Monday, November 23, 2009

State Rep. Terry Harrison (D, McAlester) has announced his intention to run for District Attorney in 2010, rather than run for a fifth term in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

Harrison represents House District 18, which covers portions of McIntosh and Pittsburg counties, including the cities of Eufaula and McAlester. The District Attorney seat he will be running for is District 18, which covers Pittsburg and Haskell counties.

Incumbent District 18 District Attorney Jim Bob Miller has been prohibited from running for election in 2010 through a deferred prosecution agreement Miller made with state Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office.

Miller agreed not to run for another term and the attorney general agreed not to prosecute him. The agreement did not require Miller to resign.

The agreement became known in early September after a state Multicounty Grand Jury completed its probe into allegations of misconduct by Miller’s office.

Allegations against Miller concerned his attempts to subpoena identifying records of up to 35 bloggers who had posted comments critical of him on the McAlester Watercooler Web site.

Harrison gave some reasons for his decision; also from the McAlester News-Capitol.

Harrison also referred to his perception of the current situation in the state legislature.

“I am so tired of party politics,” said Harrison, who is the minority whip in the House.

“When I was first elected as a state legislator, you never heard me say ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican.’ Right was right and wrong was wrong.”

The Democratic Party is now in the minority in the state House.

“The last legislative sessions have been brutal — having the Republican agenda pushed down our throat,” Harrison said.

With the Democrats now only holding 39 of 101 seats in the State House, I think we will see more sitting Democrat representatives bail out as well. This presents an opportunity for the GOP, particularly in the heavily-Democratic 2nd Congressional District, to pick up seats that otherwise would have been nearly impossible to win.